Swiping your credit card will provide more than retail therapy over the next five weeks as Bank of Valletta will be donating 5c to Caritas for each transaction.

So whether people dine out, pay their car insurance bill or indulge in some shopping, the bank will transfer 5c to the charity organisation. This would not cost the card-holder anything, BOV chief officer operations, Michael Galea, said, adding the transfer would be made on all BOV credit and debit cards.

Each year, Caritas forked out about €1.8 million to help families in need and offer support and rehabilitation to people with drug, alcohol and gambling problems, Caritas director Mgr Victor Grech said. The government helped by giving Caritas about €560,000 but the rest of the funds had to be raised. Over the past five years, he said, the number of people who sought Caritas’s services increased by about 30 per cent.

Last year, over 600 young people sought Caritas’s community outreach service asking for help to get over their drug addiction.

“When they come to us it’s usually because they would have hit rock bottom and some would have been living on the streets for years,” he said. Mgr Grech said Caritas helped such people address the problems that led them to drugs and helped them rebuild their lives. He thanked the bank for the initiative that would help Caritas continue helping those in need.

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